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by Susan Smith - Managing EditorEach GIS Weekly Review delivers to its readers news concerning the latest developments in the GIS industry, GIS product and company news, featured downloads, customer wins, and coming events, along with a selection of other articles that we feel you might find interesting. Brought to you by GISCafe.com. If we miss a story or subject that you feel deserves to be included, or you just want to suggest a future topic, please contact us! Questions? Feedback? Click here. Thank you!

Software developer Global Maps Inc. from Kibbutz Givat Haim Ihud in Israel, has announced the launching of the new version of OpenLM for ESRI ArcGIS software.

The software is available for download and evaluation at the OpenLM web site. OpenLM for ESRI ArcGIS is designed to improve the use of the popular ESRI Desktop ArcGIS family of products: ArcView, ArcEditor and ArcInfo. OpenLM offers a dramatic improvement in the availability of software licenses to end users and has a significant influence on users productivity.

At the 2008 Realcomp "Tools of the Trade" Expo recently, Realcomp II Ltd. ("Realcomp") officially announced its agreement with iLOOKABOUT Corp. ("iLOOKABOUT") for the iLOOKABOUT Streetscape product which was signed in the Fall of 2007. Realcomp, based in Farmington Hills, is Michigan's largest real estate MLS provider for iLOOKABOUT StreetScape, location-aware digital imagery of properties in Metropolitan Detroit comprising the Southeast Michigan counties of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, and St. Clair, and additional photography services for Lapeer, Genesee and Washtenaw counties.

For the first time, probably since the 11th Century Domesday Book, a complete list of English property addresses is now available, updated in almost real-time. The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), the first, definitive, national (England and Wales) address list that provides unique identification of properties and conforms to British Standards is to be launched for commercial use on 30 April 2008. The onward uses of the NLPG are potentially huge, from wider public sector use to commercial application in insurance, customer profiling, logistics, satellite navigation and more.

Oracle announced that the latest release of Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management will allow utilities to take advantage of out-of-the-box integration with Oracle Application Server MapViewer, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle Application Server MapViewer displays geospatial data from a number of sources, including Oracle Database, Oracle Spatial, utilities' GIS systems and external geospatial Web sites accessible through Web services.

Acquisitions/Agreements/Alliances

Pictometry International Corp., a provider of geo-referenced aerial image libraries whose proprietary technology is used globally to capture oblique image libraries, has signed an exclusive technology licensing agreement with Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd. (KKC), a leading Japanese mapping and surveying company.

Under the agreement, KKC has exclusive rights to utilize Pictometry’s unique image capture and processing technology and market image libraries and software throughout Japan, including customers in government agencies, commercial businesses, and web sites.

Tele Atlas, a global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location based solutions, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with Kalyani Group (India), a leading Indian industrial group, to acquire substantial equity position in Kalyani Net Ventures Limited (KNVL), headquartered in Pune, India. The closing of the transaction is subject to the satisfaction of certain usual and customary closing conditions.

Kalyani Net Ventures Limited is a leading map provider in India serving the consumer application, business-to-business and business-to-government market segments. Previously, the company was solely owned by Kalyani Group.

Announcements

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) membership has approved the OASIS ebRIM (electronic business Registry Information Model) application profile of the OpenGIS Catalogue Service 2.1.2 standard. The Catalogue Standard specifies a design pattern that allows for the definition of interfaces called application profiles based on different standards, such as ZF39.50, ebRIM, UDDI, or ISO metadata, that support the ability to publish and search collections of descriptive information (metadata) about geospatial data, services and related information objects.

The members of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) announced the approval of the OpenGIS KML Encoding Standard (OGC KML), marking KML's transition into an open standard which will be maintained by the OGC. Developers will now have a standard approach for using KML to code and share visual geographic content in existing or future web-based online maps and 3D geospatial browsers like Google Earth.

KML version 2.2 was brought into the OGC consensus process by a submission team led by Google and Galdos Systems Inc.

Avineon, Inc., a provider of IT, geospatial, engineering and program management services, announced that it has recently begun a geographic information system (GIS) project to migrate ACEDL Smallworld data and OSP InSight data to Fiber Manager, a new extension of the recently released Telvent Miner & Miner (TM&M) ArcFM Solution. The project entails extraction and migration of all telecommunications-related data for a mid-sized East Coast utility company and is Avineon's first using TM&M's Fiber Manager.

Azteca Systems, Inc. announced the Small Government Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) Program that allows unlimited deployments of Cityworks software to municipalities and counties in the United States. The program provides access to the leading GIS-centric asset maintenance management and permitting solutions small governments need within a clear, tiered pricing schedule.

Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced that registration is open at

www.bentley.com/BEconference/registration for BE Conference 2008 - BEst Practices for Sustaining Infrastructure, being held May 28-30 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Md. During this two-and-a-half-day event, decision makers and senior practitioners from infrastructure organizations around the globe, including owner-operators and AEC firms, will share innovative best practices using Bentley solutions. The BE Conference 2008 keynote presentation will be made by Andrew Winston, founder of Winston Eco-Strategies and co-author of the best-seller "Green to Gold."

1Spatial is pleased to announce that due to unprecedented demand, they have increased capacity for the FREE INSPIRE seminar and metadata workshop, a precursor event to the1Spatial Conference 2008.

Hosted by Robin Waters, Chair of the AGI Working Group for INSPIRE, the free seminar will provide a comprehensive introduction to INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) and cover the potential business impact of INSPIRE on stakeholders. Rob Walker, Independent Consultant and 2008 Chair of AGI, who is also a Member of AGI Working Group on INSPIRE, will run a workshop highlighting the Implementing Rules for Metadata and how metadata issues can be addressed by organizations responsible for datasets that may be affected by INSPIRE.

DMTI Spatial (DMTI), a provider of location intelligence, has announced a company realignment to better accommodate continued growth and expand the number of leaders who will work directly with DMTI’s clients. A new divisional structure comprised of three strategic business units (SBUs) will better enable the company to focus on providing the highest level of service and value innovations to the marketplace. George Staikos, SVP and GM will lead the Client Management Division; Michael Byalik, SVP and GM will lead the Enterprise Solutions Division; and John Sorrell, VP and GM will move from the Marketing department to lead the Mapping Solutions Division.

DigitalGlobe, provider of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery and geospatial information products, announced that it has chosen Boeing Launch Services for the launch of WorldView-2, DigitalGlobe's third remote-sensing satellite. WorldView-2 will offer the industry's highest collection capacity, more frequent refresh and revisit rates, more spectral information and greater imaging agility. WorldView-2, a next-generation system being built independent of a U.S. Government contract, is currently scheduled to launch in mid-2009.

Contests

The winners of the ArcGIS Server Code Challenge were announced at the 2008 ESRI Developer Summit in Palm Springs, California, on March 19. Developers were invited to post their original code samples to the ArcGIS Server Code Challenge blog so that the code could be reviewed by peers in the ESRI developer community. Prior to the summit, ESRI Developer Network (EDN) subscribers and registered attendees for the 2008 Developer Summit were asked to vote for their favorite entry based on the creativity, applicability, and originality of the code sample.

John Waterman, vice president of Geospatial Solutions at GCS Research in East Burke, Vermont, won the first-place prize of $15,000. His code sample demonstrates how ArcGIS Server can be integrated with Microsoft Virtual Earth and Google Maps. David Bouwman, senior software architect at Data Transfer Solutions in Fort Collins, Colorado, took second place and $7,500 for his ArcGIS Server Virtual Earth Tile Server entry.